


Nightmare On Neiboit St.

by LadyVisenya



Category: IT (2017), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Canon Compliant, Dubious Consent, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, Nightmares, Past Child Abuse, Will Be Updated As I Go, the losers are all still friends, up to part 1
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-08
Updated: 2017-11-22
Packaged: 2019-01-31 00:02:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,261
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12664155
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyVisenya/pseuds/LadyVisenya
Summary: It is supposed to be dead. Bill and his childhood friends had killed It a long time ago down in the sewers. So then why did Bill keep dreaming about It?





	1. dreams, nightmares, and night terrors

The fields of the Hanlon farms that would erupt into a riot of color in the spring where Mike and Ben would string together flower chains, where Bill had spent days and nights with his friends turned into the dark wet sewers under the town. His sneakers wet and soggy as he kept walking, endlessly walking, trying to escape. Bill could hear his friends laughing, playing just beyond the sewers. 

But the more he ran to them, the further they sounded. Always just out of reach, always beyond him. 

His chest heaved with anxiety boiling just under his skin. Frustration sharpening fear into anger. The sewer went on and on in every direction, the light that seeped through came and went without an exit from the tunnels.  Bill knew he couldn’t stop, forcing himself to keep going. Every turn led to a new corridor. 

The walls wet and covered in grime. 

Sewer lids opened into new passages. New passages led to more twists and turns. The water never less than ankle deep, soaking his feet in piss and shit. Bill felt a deep and primal fear, a shudder running through his body.

He could feel something behind him, always out of sight. Bill wanted to scream out in anger, in fear. 

He wanted to scream and pound his hands against the walls. He wanted out, but the fear drove him forward, not letting him stop. He couldn’t-he mustn’t stop. 

Closer and closer and closer. 

Bill took another turn in the endless labyrinth and came to a dead end. 

Heavy footsteps thudded behind him, splashing their way through the water towards him, towards where he stood waiting and trembling like a mouse. 

He squeezed his eyes shut and-

Bill woke up tangled in his bed sheets soaked with sweat, a scream lodged in his throat from unseen monsters stalking his nightmares.

The dreams had started about a month ago, right around finals which didn’t help. He already was a mess of anxiety with a lack of sleep and what was way too much mozzarella sticks that he kept sneaking in to his study sessions with Audra and Benji. 

They had practically lived in the library, along with half the school. 

It had started out small. His dreams always morphing into the town of Derry. It was always summer in his dreams as he wandered around an empty town. He’d sit down and lay in the grass, the nostalgia coated memories of his youth would mix with his dreams. But the town was always empty save for Bill.

As time went on, Bill would start to find himself in the sewers or the house on Neibolt Street, more decrepit than it had been even when his was a teenager, smelling of rot and mold. 

He wouldn’t be able to fall asleep after, using the time before dawn and work to paint.

The feeling of unease persisted at the back of his neck throughout the day. Bill knew what he was dreaming about, the monster of his childhood, it was all on the tip of his tongue, but the frayed and faded memories never came together, always just out of reach.

It was stupid. 

Bill felt stupid. 

He was a grown man for chirst’s sake. He shouldn’t be tormented by nightmares. He shouldn’t be scared of what would happen when he fell asleep. This wasn’t the nightmare on elm street. The monster in his dreams couldn’t hurt him. Bill’s dreams were just that, dreams. 

But Bill couldn’t shake the feeling that he was being watched in his dreams, always waking up when a red balloon would pop loudly, sending him crashing off his bed and onto the floor. 

Audra had come running in that time in an oversized jersey and underwear, asking  if he was okay again and again. She’d made him a cup off coffee and sat with him watching brooklyn nine nine until he stopped feeling jumpy at every sound and shadow. 

She hadn’t pushed him to hard once it was clear he didn’t want to talk about it. But she did tell him he’d been looking like shit for the last month. 

Bill preferred this Audra. Audra as his best friend rather then the Audra, his girlfriend, who he had been an absolute shit to and she’d been just as bad right back until he couldn’t stand the sight of her and everything had gone so wrong. It was probably better that they broke up. He’d never made her a priority the way he should have, and she’d resented him. Dating had almost ruined their friendship. 

It got to the point where Bill was drifting off in his dumb job, the word document filled with pages and pages of nonsense before he woke back up, always sweating and panting and shaking. 

The bags under his eyes were noticeable for the first time in his life and he couldn’t stop jumping at sudden movements. 

Bill would close his eyes and try as hard as he could to recall the memories of that summer, the summer that had given them all a scar on his palm. But no matter what he did, it always escaped him. 

He couldn’t sleep. 

He didn’t want to sleep and sink back into the sewers, the stench of the sewers stayed in his mind for hours after he had woken. 

Bill thought about calling his old friends, Ben or Evan or was it Ezra, he could never recall them exactly. It had been such a long time ago. 

And that was it. 

They hadn’t talked in years and Bill wasn’t sure how it would come off if he randomly called any of them ranting about nightmares and sewers and things that had happened ten years ago. 

His coworker and friend Chris had already spent way too much time giving him the classic I’m worried about you looks whenever they were alone, but she had yet to ask. For now, she was placated with Bill smiling and bringing her donuts from the shop right next to the flat he shared with Audra and Riz, a bacon topped maple bar which Bill told her was an affront to donuts everywhere. He loved bacon, and he loved donuts, but they were two foods that just did not go together.

Bill finally relented to facing the fact that he kept having nightmares when he passed out from lack of sleep on the street, right after he had gotten out of work. He had been avoiding sleep by drinking coffee mixed with red bull that way that Benji, his roommate during freshman year and an absolute legend who had always showed up to class covered in glitter and hungover, had sworn by in order to have a social life and keep a 4.0 GPA. 

He couldn’t take it anymore. The sewers and Derry and constant feeling of being on edge and just waiting for the shoe to drop, a familiar feeling from growing up in a household where he’d been unwanted. 

Bill felt like he was constantly on a rollercoaster, at the peak of the first hill, waiting for it to start, waiting for the cart to drop. And that just made it worse. 

If he knew what was there, what was watching him just out of sight, he might have been able to deal with it. But he couldn’t deal with something he couldn’t even see. 

Bill just wanted to get it over with. 

“Look,” Chris said, after handing him a bottle of water, the beads at the end of her cornrows smacking his arm. Bill had joked that they were a weapon once. “I used to suffer from night terrors. Seeing someone helped. And if you don’t want to, it’s okay, but you should at least talk about it. What else are friends for?”

Bill remembered the school counselor that had kept trying to get him to open up, acting as if losing his brother was something Bill would ever get over, like Bill’s entire life wasn’t split into the time before Georgie and after Georgie.

“How did you even-“

“Audra told me you haven’t been sleeping well. Also I have eyes,” she replied, rolling her eyes and sighing. “Dude, we’re your friends. You know you can talk to us. Bill, I didn’t judge you for liking the Star Wars prequels.”

“They weren’t that bad. And you gave me so much shit for that.”

“Dude, can you blame me? One word, Jar Jar Binks.”

“That’s three words,” he said with a smirk.

“Don’t be a smart ass,” she said smacking his arm lightly, but laughing all the same. “Just know I’m here for you if you need to talk.”

But it’s not something he can talk about. 

Bill knows it’s not night terrors. He’s had the sneaking suspicion that his dreams aren’t just dreams. They’re not just in his head. They felt more real, tangible in a way that dreams shouldn’t be, that dreams weren’t. 

The thought makes him want to throw up, but nothing else would explain how when he had fallen through the rotted stairs in the house on Neibolt Street and woken up just as something had slithered out of the shadows, just before Bill could get a look at whatever it was, he'd woken with bruises on his side. His arm bleeding from where the wood had grazed his skin. 

After the third month, when Bill is little more than a walking zombie, his brain absolutely melted and unable to string a sentence together, he knows it’s not something that will go away on its own.

He gives his work notice that he’s taking some time off work and his boss’ relief is palpable. Bill isn’t much of an editor if he’s so sleep deprived he can’t even read what he’s supposed to be editing. 

He haphazardly shoves some things into his suitcase and books a flight to Derry, specifically a flight to Maine and a drive to Derry because Derry’s too small to have an airport, and tries not to feel like he’s going towards his own death. 

Bill will figure this out and come back and finally finish writing one of the novels he has started on his laptop and quit his soulless job. 

Bill falls asleep on the flight there, long legs cramped from the lack of space to stretch out in, head resting in the most uncomfortable position against seats that look like they’ve seen better days, leather cracked and peeling. It’s the first time in months he gets any rest.

 

* * *

 

It had been five years since Bill had last set foot in Derry. Given the choice, he would never have come back again. 

He wishes he had the money to stay in a motel, anything to not have to stay in his parent’s house. House not home because Bill hasn’t felt at ease here since his brother died. He had grown up an unwanted guest in his own house. His mother had been a ghost, scarcely leaving her room only to occasionally eat. She had never resented him the way his dad had, the way he would constantly get annoyed at Bill for the slightest things like making himself food when the game was on. 

It would have been easier if she had resented him instead of looked right through him like he didn't exist. 

He’d not only lost a brother when Georgie died, he’d lost his parents too. 

Yet there he was, sleeping in the room that used to be his in a makeshift bed on the ground. 

Bill couldn’t bring himself to get into the guest bed, his things thrown away, erased like the Denbrough’s had never had a son. It had been with shake relief that Bill noted that Georgie’s room remained untouched, a thick layer of dust coating the surface. 

It was his mother that opened the door. She hadn’t even hugged him, just smiled tightly and let him in. He might as well have been some stranger renting an airbnb for all she seemed to care. 

It had been a relief to leave for college. Bill had always carefully saved up and taken summer classes so that he wouldn’t have to come back ever. He had hated his parents. He had hated himself. Bill hadn’t been enough for them after his brother passed away. 

They hadn’t even gone to his graduation. Even Richie’s alcoholic and abusive mother had made it. 

When he packed his bags for college, intending to never return, his mom hadn’t cried or hugged him or even gone to see him off, she’d just played the piano downstairs. His dad had worked that day. 

And now here he was again. 

The pictures in the hall only ever show a six year old boy and an eleven year old boy, never older. 

Bill leaves as soon as he’s up and showered, unable to stand the anxiety of being in this house. He hated having to always be uneasy, always walking on eggshells least his dad come running to yet at him or worse. He felt like a kid again. 

Derry hasn’t changed much since he had been a kid. The arcade where he had spent hours with Richie, both escaping their home life, had closed down, boarded up and waiting for a new tenant. The Aladdin  continued to be the sole movie theater in town, now owned and operated by a theater chain. Other than that, Derry remained the same. 

He walked aimlessly around town, every place filled with memories of being ten and twelve and fourteen riding around bikes with his friends. No parent in their right mind today would let their kids bike around without supervision. 

Bill bought a cheap hot dog for breakfast. The cashier was Greta, who had bullied him and his friends often over the years, but she didn’t seem to recognize him. She seemed as miserable as she had made them as kids. Her scowl now permanently set, lines etched deep promising wrinkles later in life. 

It was still better than the cold sandwich from the airport. 

His phone kept flashing text notifications from Chris and Benji. He knew Audra had taken the night shift lately so she was probably sleeping. Both their messages much the same, asking how he was doing. Benji having sent more emoji hears than words. 

His life felt so far away, as if there was a bubble separating Derry from the outside world. 

Bill sat down on a park bench and tried to ignore the slight headache starting to form in his temples. He rubbed at his temples trying to ease the ache, trying to decide if he should go buy advil. 

It was like that, sitting in the blazing sun, that Mike Hanlon found him. 

“Bill Denbrough as I live in breathe,” Mike said walking over to him, smile wide, crinkling his eyes. He looked good. Tall frame filled in from years of sports and with an open friendliness that had made mike popular in high school, that had made him prom king with ease. “Haven’t seen you in a long time. What have you been up to?”

“Work, more work, and wondering if grad school is worth the debt,” he said, smiling back at Mike. Bill knew he looked like shit, he just hoped Mike wouldn’t bring it up. 

“You just missed Eddie and Richie man. They left last week. Richie’s going out to Vegas for work. Said he was going to try to visit Bev and Ben now that he’d be on the same coast as them. Eddie’s in some midwestern state for something to do with work. He said he’d try to make it home for christmas, only thing keeping his mom from moving across the country after him if you ask me.”

Bill shrugs, running a hand through his hair. Mike had known about his home life situation. Most of his friends had just assumed his parents were cool with everything, with Bill not coming home without notice since they never went looking for him, and he’d been happy to let them think that. But Mike had noticed, so had Richie, and he’d confided in them. He could let himself break down in front of Mike without feeling judged. “College was good, never really planned on coming back. What about you man, what have you been up to?”

“Got a history degree thinking I’d figure it out later but there’s not a lot of need for history. I’m thinking of going to grad school. Already applied, just figuring out the loans.”

Mike told him about June, the pretty girlfriend out in Chicago where he’d gone to university and where he’d applied to grad school. They were taking a break instead of trying the long distance relationship while Mike took a year off school before staring to work on his doctorate, "I mean if it's meant to be it'll work out in the end right," Mike said, shrugging. 

They talked about Mike’s family’s farm, how his uncle was now in charge and his cousin would probably run it after that. “I don’t really have the stomach for it, never did.” Mike told him about the towns latest tragedies: a car that crashed and caught fire, trapping the six teenagers coming back from a party inside. They had burned to death alive.

Bill found himself opening up to Mike like these last five years had never happened. He talked about how frustrating trying to sell art was even if you did fill the gallery with people, no one wanted to buy anything unless it was a Banksy. He told Mike about stumbling in to work, the weed being the only thing keeping himself from running out the door screaming. How stupid he had been to think getting an art degree would work out. 

But something kept him from revealing his nightmares. Bill knew he shouldn’t, it would be the wrong thing to say. It would ruin the friendship with Mike he had just started repairing.  

When he had left, he had left more than just his parents behind. He had tried to bury every part of his life in Derry, including his friends. Whereas they had made the effort to stay in touch through Facebook and snapchat, he had left and never looked back. 

Bill wasn’t even sure he had any of their snapchats. 

Mike invited him to Sunday brunch at the Hanlon farm, and only said goodbye after Bill had promised he’d be there, running to his current job at the library. 

He gave up and bought a bottle of Advil and a bottle of water to wash the pills down, remembering Eddie’s comments about pills burning holes in throats. Bill resumed his wandering and ended up the rundown house on Neibolt street, the one where not even the homeless and drug addicts dared enter. 

He stood outside, caught between wanting to run away and never turn back and the urge to go inside. 

Bill’s head pounded, vision swimming. 

The world spun under Bill’s feet, a chill ran up his spine, making the hairs on the back of his neck stand on edge. He forced himself to turn away, forced himself to walk back to his parent’s house, and didn’t leave the house again that day, laying in bed, swallowing more than the recommended dose to try and ease the headache. 

Neither of his parents said anything to him. They didn’t even invite him down for dinner, not that he’d want to sit between them. 

Dinners with his parents had always been a cold quiet affair. His mother staring at nothing while only poking at her plate. His father had used meal times to continue to fill out paperwork , getting angry if anyone distracted him and shutting himself in his office. 

There had been no warmth from their family meals, just a cold emptiness that made Bill’s heart ache. 

He would have done anything for his parents to notice him. To pay attention to him just once for something other than to tell him to get out of the way. For either his mom or dad to look at him with any sort of warmth. 

So Bill just sat in the guest room, his bedroom once upon a time, and made did his best to make himself unnoticeable, just like old times. 

He twisted and turned in bed, trying to escape the pain in his head by going to sleep earlier than he had in years. The sun had just started to set and Bill was already in bed, falling asleep to an intense pressure inside his skull.

 

That night, Bill dreamed of the quarry and turtles and water turning pink with blood. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hmu if u want me to continue. find me on tumblr at lissbethsalander


	2. sunday sunday here again

“Want seconds?”

“Naw man I’m good,” Bill replies, wiping his mouth with his napkin. 

“Oh come on honey,” Katrina said as she heaped his plane full once more. Grilled chicken, greens, and rice. Bill might as well have been twelve again, having stayed for dinner after a long day of playing tag with the losers. Eddie had usually left first along with Stan, both had parents that would start a search party if they were five minutes late. “Have some more. I know how you college students live,” she shook her head. 

Mike laughed, “gonna to have to finish your plate now.”

“Oh, have some more too Michael,” Mike’s aunt said, serving him more food as well. 

“Thank you Mrs. Hanlon,” Bill said between bites. He wasn’t bad at making food even making his own pancakes from scratch, none of that boxed shit Audra was always buying, but he was usually too lazy to bother. If Riz had made food, he’d let Bill and Audra help themselves otherwise it was toaster oven meals and take out. 

“Didn’t want to say it when I first saw you man, but you look like shit. Work stressing you out?”

“Something like that,” Bill replied, not wanting to lie to Mike. The truth was crazy, made him look crazy, even if he had dreamed of something almost pleasant, but then again anything other than being trapped in the sewers even if it was just in his dream. 

And he remembered how much the loser’s had hated him dragging down their games by bringing up the missing kids. Beside’s, Mike was too good of a person to lie too. Bill just couldn’t look him in the eye and lie to his face. 

“Well, I’m glad you’re here. Take some time off work. Rest, and most importantly, visit your old friend,” Mike said, squeezing his arm amicably. 

“Work’s the worst. Not the people,” he finds himself saying, “meet one of my best friends there, but jesus christ if I ever see another miss use of the semicolon or five commas for one sentence-I hate grammar, but it was a job.”

“Thought you were studying art?”

“I was-did, but there’s just not a lot of people buying art unless your like really famous. I did quick charcoal portraits by some tourist trap for a while and it wasn’t so bad for a while.”

“Except when the tourist stop coming,” Mike finished for him.

“Yeah. Pretty much.” 

“Well, I wish I could say I had some perfect solution. Sometimes a job’s just a job. Not Starbucks though,” Mike says with a grimace, “literal hell on earth. Just customer service in general but god the shit people will do during the morning rush. Had a customer ask for five shot of expresso in their grande latte, takes one sip and starts screaming about how they know it’s only five shots until we poured in another one in front of their eyes.”

“Don’t they have a crazy turnover rate?”

“Yes! And why wouldn’t they! They were the only job that fit my schedule at the time but as soon as that semester ended I quit and looked for something else.”

“Can’t relate. The only food related job I had was this tiny, and I mean tiny, restaurant that just made sushi burritos. It was packed at night but since the place was so tiny and full of college students everyone just went in, ordered, and bounced.”

“Thought New Yorkers were supposed to be rude,” Mike’s grandfather, Leroy asked. The man didn’t look any older than when he’d last seen him, except for the cane resting by his side, the result of a bad fall at an old age according to Mike. 

“Oh they can be,” he replied, “but you don’t notice it after a while, you just sort of learn to shove your way around the city. Still can’t hail a cab, but who has that kind of money? Not me.” 

They all laughed, Leroy shaking his head more than anything. Bill still remembered how kindly, how welcome he had been at the Halon’s. They had never been bothered if he stayed over late, Leroy even offering to drive him home if it was dark.  It hadn’t been just him either. Shirley had sent Richie home with so called leftovers, claiming they would go to waste. They would all pile into the back Leroy’s truck, even Eddie despite his protests. Leroy had even taught Bill and Eddie to drive. 

He felt safe here. It was childish to think that he was safe from his dreams, it was childish to even think they were more than dreams, but Bill clung onto the idea that whatever it was, couldn’t get to him here. 

The conversation move on to how the last harvest went and country fairs where they’d put up their best animals into competition. Mike’s uncle Howard handed him a beer after teasing him for having skipped church this morning. 

He hadn’t set foot in a church since Georgie’s funeral. They hadn’t even been a church going family, just the big holidays. 

“Easy with the beer man,” Mike said. “Need a ride home?” Mike had picked him from his parent’s house, along with Howard and his wife Mae. 

“No dude,” he said, stretching out, arms over his head, “the walk’ll be nice. Besides, I’ve walked a hell of a lot more in the city before.”

“Oh yeah,” Mike says, taking a drink from his own beer, “what’s the story there.”

“Lost my subway pass and didn’t have cash for another one,” he shrugged, “I wasn’t crazy enough to hop the till like Benji does. He just runs for it, never get caught.”

Mike chuckled, “afraid knees’ll give out old man?”

“You’re a whole three months older than me,” he yells indignantly as Mike walks with him to the end of the farm. Bill waves goodbye as Mike’s uncles and cousins argue about which chicken is the best of the lot. 

“Five but close enough,” Mike corrects, his arm wrapping lightly around Bill’s shoulder. “Gotta say man, not cool on running out on us and never looking back. Not even a happy birthday on Facebook?”

“I guess that was pretty shitty on my part,” Bill admits feeling a wave of guilt about all the promises they’d made at graduation. They’d all called Ben and Bev right after, Ben having moved to Houston after sophomore year. He’d made those promises knowing he was going to break them. 

“You think,” Mike says, his expression exaggerating his outrage. “Just don’t be a stranger dude. Friendships like these are rare. If it wasn’t for you crazy white kids throwing rocks at Bowers I probably wouldn’t have chosen to go to Derry high.”

“God, did we really do that?”

“Yeah.”

Bill let his mind wander as he walked back into town. 

He really shouldn’t have. 

Something had tugged at his subconscious, pulling him to that place. It was always that place, in his dreams, in his nightmares. He could almost feel the dust in the air as he walked right up to the house, halting outside what passed for a door. The entrance was boarded up, but only half way, if Bill had wanted to, he could have gone under since the door was laying off its hinges in the hallway. 

There was something pulling him inside, and the more Bill stood there deliberating, the harder it was the fight the urge to enter. He could feel the now familiar headache, like a pressure building inside his skull. He clutched at his skull, trying to relieve the pressure. 

_He thrusts his fists against the post and still insists he sees the ghosts._

The mantra from his childhood; it was the only thing he could think off, using it as his touchstone, as he stepped into the house on Neibolt St, hands shaking. 

The inside of the house was disturbingly familiar for a place he had only been inside in his dreams. The smashed up table exactly where it had been in his dreams. The moth eaten couch slowly turning to dust along with the newspapers piled on top, the most recent was from the year Bill had become friends with Ben and Beverly. 

He swallowed as the floorboards creaked with every step. The pain in throbbing in his brain had receded. Bill winced with every sound, convinced that the monster from his dreams would hear and come for him. It was irrational. 

_He thrusts his fists against the post and still insists he sees the ghosts._

Bill stopped at the stairs that led to the second floor. They barely looked together as it was, he was sure that he’d fall right through the wood if he even tried to go up. 

And the hairs on the back of his head had started to prickle. 

A primal sense from when people had been hunted by predators was going off like crazy, telling Bill to run far away from this place. The same mixture of fear and adrenalin that had urged Bill on his quest to find his brother that summer kept him rooted to the spot. 

Fear was an old friend to him. The fear of Georgie not coming home. The fear of finding Georgie dead in a ditch somewhere. The fear that no one would ever love Bill again if he didn’t find Georgie. Fear was an old friend, and the sooner he knew what he was dealing with, the sooner he could deal with it. 

_He thrusts his fists against the post and still insists he sees the ghosts._

He forgot of course, how helpful it was to feeling brave when you had six other people with you. When you had people to be brave for, it was easier to be brave. 

A large thump echoed out from under the house. From the basement where Bill had fallen and fallen and kept falling in his nightmares, never reaching the bottom. It seemed the sewers in his dreams had no end, no escape. 

Bill jumped, his heart racing as he was spurred into action. He had been crazy to come here. He had been crazy to even enter the crackhouse. Bill regretted ever having come back to Derry. 

The earth he had been filled with at the Hanlon farm evaporating leaving only dread. 

His determination lasted until the next sound, closer this time. 

He turned and ran out the door, making his head on the board as he exited the house and ran. Bill needed to go somewhere with people. He didn’t want to be alone. 

Alone was how the monsters get you. 

He ran in the general direction of downtown and didn't slow down until he started seeing families walking around the shops and getting lunch on a sunny Sunday. His lungs burned. Bill hadn’t run that much since he was a kid. 

He wasn’t sure the feeling of his chest constricting, light headedness, and lack of air was just the running, but he didn’t need that right now. He just needed to feel safe. 

Yeah right, he thought to himself. Safe and Derry were not two words that went together. Ever. 

Derry sat down at the small diner outside of where Bill remembered throwing up after drinking way to much with Eddie and Mike. He ordered a cup of coffee out of some hollywood engrained habit before even looking at the menu. It probably hadn’t changed in the last five years. 

He choked the watery coffee full of cream and sugar and drank it slowly, his hands shaking so hard the coffee threatened to spill. Bill gripped the cup as hard as he could, knuckles turning white, as he tried to cling onto his sanity. 

The noise he had heard in the house was probably just his sleep addled mind. He just need sleep and lots of it. He needed to rest and he’d be fine. 

But he felt so far from fine. 

Bill was dialing Audra before he even knew what he was doing. He needed to hear her voice and know he wasn’t going crazy. He needed someone outside of this fucking town. He needed to remind himself that he had a life outside of Derry. 

“You better be calling to thank me for doing your roommate chores while you’ve gone all John Kr-whatever on me. Like I know your an artist so this was going to happen sooner or later.”

“You’re literally only doing them because I promised to take you too that one really expensive french restaurant that was featured on Worth It,” he replied, laughing out of relief. He could have been sitting on the couch with Riz and Benji watching some game they both had placed money on.

“I’ve watched that episode like three times in anticipation too bub. I’m so ready to send to a higher plane of existence like rich people. Just call me Donna and play ABBA. How’s Maine?”

“Awful. Just reminding me why I left.”

“Should have taken a vacation to Washington. Lots of green. Isn’t it also supposed to be some hipster trash mecca?”

“You’ve got to stop brining that up! Submarine is a great film.”

“You cried babe, and then played the soundtrack exclusively for a month straight.”

He laughed, “thats sexist and why we need meninism.”

“Oh my god Bill I hate you,” she said. “Also gotta run, there’s roller derby try outs going on so I might get to live out a childhood dream.”

“Kick ass.”

“You know it!”

He already felt better. He’d go home and sleep all day and tomorrow he’d book a flight home and leave this whole nightmare behind him. Downing a couple of painkillers, Bill curled up on the guest bedroom and took a much needed nap. 

 

* * *

 

Although Bill had always thought that exercise was a bullshit way to make anyone feel better, along with  eating vegetable and waking up early. They were all lies told by people who were doing great. 

But yet there he was, up way too early to go on a run. It was only a run if he was being generous but Bill was at his wits end and ready to try anything to feel better. 

Last night had gone just like every other night. The painkillers weren’t enough to keep him from dreaming and he’d woken up half way through the night after falling on the floor, trying to get away. 

Laying in bed after, he’d gone over the tongue twisters he’d learned in speech therapy years before. Bill had never once missed an appointment, riding his bike to all the way there after his parents stopped bothering to take him. His dad had never wanted to take him anyway, more frustrated with bill’s stutter than even Bill was with himself. 

Years later he’d find out that his parents had stopped paying for speech therapy, and the Dr had just been kind enough to throw him a free bone. His face had burned red with shame. Bill had always tried his best to hide how bad things were at home. He hadn’t wanted to bother anyone.

He took the path by his parent’s house that led to the barrens, still stupidly worry of the neighborhood park. As a child, Bill had known better than to go by that park. Bowers and his friends would stalk the park waiting to catch any kid that was nearby and shove them around until they’d had their fun. Honestly, he’d never gotten why the adults never did anything about it with how many assemblies on bullying they seemed to get at their school. Yet nothing ever happened. 

He’d understood when it was too late. Bill had realized that adults are so caught up in their own worlds they never see anything else thats going on. It had been why his parents had move on while he had been left to cry himself to sleep. 

Adults had adult worries to take up their time, work and paying bills and buying groceries. Just like he did now. 

After a couple of minutes he settled into an easy rhythm, losing himself in the light jog. He didn’t need to think. 

There was strange satisfaction in running by choice. The sweat and burn felt good. He felt good, better than he had in a while, since the dreams had started. 

When he couldn’t keep going, Bill slowed down, breathing heavily. The barrens were, well, barren this time of year. The green that came with spring had been matted down, turning brown with the fall. 

He’d spent lots of time out here, playing cops and robbers or bonnie and clyde after Richie had watched the old movie and become obsessed with it. They’d played at pirates and the hero that featured in the comics Ben bought and let them all read even if that had sometimes ended with a page getting ripped out. 

The had lined some of the trails with rocks and even posted a few signs. It had surprised him. Maybe in a couple years this place would end up being some sort of regional park or nature preserve. 

He took the path he vaguely remembered leading to the dirty river he’d met Ben by. They boy had scared them more than finding that lost kid’s shoe, appearing suddenly covered in cuts and bleeding. 

Only kids would have thought of stealing first aid supplies instead of going to the hospital. 

Red balloons were tangled in a bush, swaying with the wind. Bill distantly remembered some flyer of Riz’s proclaiming what an environmental hazard balloons were. He thought of the birds and Stan as he ran his hand over one balloon turning it around and reading the words emblazoned on it 

_I heart Derry._

Scrambling back, looking around, Bill pinched himself, remembering this place, recognizing where he was. Though the years and plants had covered it up, it was the same entrance to the sewers where he’d found that shoe, where Ben had come running away from Bowers. 

In anger and frustration, Bill ripped the ballots out of the plants, tearing away the branches and vines that had grown over the sewer entrance and staring blankly inside. He could only see about ten feet inside. The grey water was littered trash that had been swept away into the sewers. 

He swallowed thickly, trying to remain calm no matter how much he wanted to take the first plane out of Derry. He knew he had done this before, like an echo, this had all happened before. 

There was someone there, barely anything more than shadows. God was he really the dumb white dude that dies in horror movies? 

He called out, “hello?”

The thing turned and he was faced with two glowing yellow eyes, the same that had haunted his childhood. 

Deja vu hit him hard. This had all happened before, a cycle that never stopped and would always happen. Him, down here in the sewers, battling a monster that shouldn’t be. A kid could unquestionably accept the existence of a monster without having an existential crisis about what that meant, about what the larger implications were. 

Would this ever end? 

How many more time should Bill find himself in the sewers before it ended? 

_“You’ll die trying B-b-billy,”_ It said stepping into the light. All at once the memories came rushing back to the surface. The kids. The sewer clown. Beverly and blood in her bathroom. Stan crying as the cuts where It had sunk its teeth into his face. 

Bill fell back into the water, trying to scrambled back and away. 

It’s white skin had black lines running across its features, like porcelain put back together after he had shattered It’s skull, such a long time ago now. It had started to put itself back together. 

Bill shook his head, trembling. It had only eleven years. They still had time, it shouldn’t be awake. They still had another sixteen years before-

It crept closer to him, movement odd and jerky, a poor mimic of humans. Even now, It towered over Bill just like It had when he was twelve. The white ruffled costume it wore was stained and yellowed, not crisp like it had been years ago when all those kids had gone missing. 

He couldn’t stop shaking. If this thing was real, then what else was out there?

It pulled him up by his shirt and clutched his chin in It’s gloved hand. Bill felt like little more than a doll in It’s strong hold. The gesture was almost gentle, a perverse intimacy as he peered into the sewer clowns utterly furious gaze, drool running down It’s chin as It spat out cruelly, “I dreamed of you. I dreamed of feasting on your flesh, sucking the marrow from your bones little boy.”

“W-we both know how this goes,” Bill said, through the fear that had settled into his spine, “you make threats and I crack your skull open.”

The clown’s features twisted in fury, jaws extending, “ssstupid boy.” It threw him against the wall. Warmth trickled down the back of his neck as the world spun. Bill raised his hand to the back of his head, blood. 

Oh god he was going to die here and It would eat it’s way through the children of Derry once more. It wasn’t time. It wasn’t-

He tried to get away but It grabbed him by his ankle and pulled Bill against It’s cold chest. “Why are you here little buddy? What brings you to me,” It hissed, “always so eager to play at being the hero.”

Was it possible that It really didn’t know? 

A humorless laugh escaped him, maybe he really had gone crazy, laughing at the very thing that wanted to and would kill him. He knew something It didn’t for once. 

“It doesn’t really matter,” It croaked, its voice a poor imitation of a joyful clown, “you’re here now. Here to _stay_.” 

“I dreamed of yuh-you too,” Bill said, right before he raised his leg and kicked the clown away. 

It went down hard. Bill didn’t stay to find out if It had gotten back up, scrambling out, out of the sewer entrance, out of the barrens and into the sunlight. Day time had never stopped It from coming after them before, but it was easy to feel safe in the sun, in the light. 

More importantly, Bill was pretty sure It wasn’t strong enough since their last encounter to do anything to him unless he went to It. It probably couldn't even leave the sewers after being starved for so long. 

Good. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thoughts? more pennywise and bill interactions next chapter. these last two chapters have been mostly set up


	3. round and around we go

Again, that house. 

Bill had wondered all day whether he had done the right thing, forcing his friends after him to kill the sewer clown, almost getting them all killed. Maybe it would have been better if they’d just avoided It. None of them had wanted to go after It. It had been Bill who’d gone into that house, dragging them all along, desperate to play at being a hero, desperate to make things right. 

It had all been his fault, just like Georgie. 

Always the house on Neibolt Street, but now he knew what lurked in the shadows. The first thing he’d done, once he’d run out the door over and over again, always ending up right back in the living room, was pick up a rusted metal pipe that had been laying around. He wasn’t sure how well it would stand up against some cosmic horror entity, but it was something. 

Bill tried going out the back door, only to end up in the kitchen. He tried the windows, only to fall down the stairs. Arm red from where he’d tried to pinch himself awake, he started panicking. This house had haunted his dreams for months, and now he remembered why, but he’d never been trapped here. 

No matter what he did, Bill ended up right back where he started. The only place left to try was the basement that led to the sewers. 

“I know yuh-you’re here,” he yelled. It knew. It knew and now was just toying him. The anticipation was killing him. 

But there was no response. 

Bill had never been one for caution, so he took a breathe and walked down the stairs. He had beaten Pennywise once already when he had been just a kid, granted he had the support of his friends, but if he had been able to deal with It as a kid, why wouldn’t he be able to do so now? 

The dim light that came in through the cracks barely let him see anything as his eyes adjusted to the dark. The well sat in the middle of the room like some ominous entrance to the underworld. He got a chill just from looking at it. The rope that they’d used to climb down it a lifetime ago was still tied around the pole, as if waiting for him to come back. Bill had gone down the well once, and they’d all been lucky to have escaped their fight with the sewer clown with only scratched compared to all the other kids, all Its victims, but maybe he’d never really gotten back out. 

His hands curled around the metal, the weight of it in his hand was a comfort. Bill wondered what would happen if he died in his dream. Would he really die? If he’d woken up with aches and bruises, then it wasn’t that crazy of a jump to assume he could die. 

Bill searched the room, fixing his eyes on the dark corners. Pennywise had loved jump scares, coming at them, catching them off guard. No place had been safe, even attacking Stan at the synagogue. 

Metal in hand, he prodded at the niches, finding the basement empty. Instead of relief, he felt more tense than before. He knew it was here, It had to be here, but where? 

What was It waiting for? 

Pennywise had been ready to kill him at the sewer entrance. And It almost had killed him. Bill had drowned coffee after coffee trying to put off sleep afterwords, not wanting to sleep. At least awake he could escape It, but his dreams were another matter entirely. 

He walked back up the stairs, bracing himself for the inevitable sight of the clown, mentally stealing himself to see Georgie at the top of the stairs. It had loved to taunt him using his brother’s body to do so. Bill had half wanted to go float, had wanted nothing more than to be with Georgie once more,but he’d also been unbelievably angry at Pennywise wearing his brother’s body, the same brother the clown had killed. 

Nothing.

Sighing, he closed his eyes. This was a dream, nothing more, just a dream. Bill knew it was all in his head. He’d just been dreaming about the house on Neibolt Street because he’d been thinking about it. 

Just a dream. 

“Not quite little buddy,” Pennywise growled, knocking him down as It landed on his chest. It settled itself on Bill, weight alone pinning him down, while dragging Its clawed hands down Bill’s body, giggling at his discomfort. “So it has been you,” It growled, “tasty tasty brat.” Drops of drool feel on Bill’s cheeks. He winced in disgust. 

“This is j-juh-just a dream,” Bill spat, “my dream.”

A low rumbling erupted from Its chest, laughter filling the room. “Oh no no no,” It hissed, “this is no dream Billy boy. This is a continuation.” It held his jaw in It’s claws, holding him still as he tried to kick it away to no avail. Bill used his hands to try and shove it off, aiming at It’s belly, but It easily knocked his hands away, taking them in one of It’s huge hands and pressing them against his chest. “Brat,” Pennywise growled low in warning. 

“I really enjuh-joyed busting your skull in as a child,” Bill retorted, “and I’m g-going to enj-joy it even muh-more this time,” hating his stutter. It was hard too sound confident when he could barely spit out the words.

Claws dug into his chest. 

He winced, clenching his teeth, refusing to show any pain. The cuts hurt more than any abuse he had suffered at the hands of Bowers and his gangs of bullies. They’d been kids too, terrible kids, but more bark than bite. 

Not until It. 

“You started things you’re not even aware of,” Pennywise said, fixing both It’s glowing yellow eyes on Bill, “you’ve begun something you don’t understand. You think you can try to kill I! An eternal being and walk away? You connected us little buddy, the moment you decided to play at hero, the moment the turtle threw you and your little brat friends at me, and it is not one way. Oh no little buddy,” It whispered with a quiet rage that scared Bill more than when It drooled and shook and tried to kill him. “I called out expecting nothing when I awoke early and hungry and you came and now I will finish what I started before you ever get the chance to finish what you started.”

“And yet you still think you and your little friends acted and survived _me_ of your own accord!” His jaw ached from It’s crushing grip, skin stinging as It dragged It’s claws along his skin, papery thin cuts beading with blood. 

Pennywise ran It’s tongue over Bill’s wounds, letting Bill’s hands go. As much as he wanted to fight It off, his mind had gone swimming at all the implications and information It had given him. The enormity of what It had implied settling like ice in his veins. 

“Off all the brats,” It said so sweetly that Bill shivered, “I will enjoy feasting on you the most.” 

Then It bent down and bit his shoulder, rows of teeth sinking down into muscle. Bill screamed, struggles renewing as he tried to get Pennywise off of him. His hands fisted in the clowns ginger hair, pulled at It, trying to dislodge It. Bill only made it worse, as his movements widened the teeth wounds. 

When It finally pulled back, Bill’s arms and legs hurt from kicking and scratching and trying uselessly to pry the clown away. His cheeks were wet with tears. Blood oozed out of the hundreds of teeth marks, groaning, he sat up.

When Pennywise grinned, showing off too many rows of shark like teeth stained pink, Bill’s blood coated It’s lips, turning It’s already cherry red lips redder.

“You marked I,” It growled, “now I have marked you little buddy.”

Bill felt around for the metal pipe that had failed out of his hand when It had nocked him down. It had too be nearby. Anything to make It end. 

It’s bloody claws ran over his cheeks, ran over his tears and It brought them to his lips, eyes fluttering closed as It moaned, tasted Bill’s blood and tears. 

His hand closed around the cool metal and he brought It down against the clown’s skull, pole going right in through Its head. Events playing out just like before, only small details changing. 

The sight was as grotesque as It had been when he was twelve. Bill backed away, he’d hope that he would have waken up by now. Usually he woke up right as IT started to step out of the shadows, right as It came into view. 

“Little buddy,” It said, shaking Its finger, eyes burning red, “you shouldn’t start things you can’t finish.”

“Go f-fuh-fuck yourself,” Bill spat, already searching for another weapon, careful not to take his eyes off the clown. 

Instead of coming after him, It slithered away, melting into the shadows, giggling as It went.

 

* * *

 

There was a missing kids poster outside of the supermarket he’d gone to buy food at. Bill was tired of greasy food and his parents couldn’t be counted on to do more than let him stay in the guest room so long as he let them go about pretending he didn’t exist. 

He’d yet to exchange any words with his dad. Bill silently wondered if his dad had even noticed he’d left for college. Neither of them had cared when he’d graduated, or when he’d gotten rejected by his first choice college. 

Dropping his bags, he went to study the poster. 

A girl, only nine, had gone missing. She’d only been gone for two days but Bill already knew why. He felt like throwing up, deja vu hitting him hard in the worst way possible. 

Bill looked around, expecting others to be seeing the poster, but he was the only one who’d stopped to read the crisp white paper. Adults never noticed anything in Derry. Bill wondered if having faced It as a child protected him from whatever made adults in Derry so oblivious.

Even in New York crimes didn’t go this unnoticed. 

It always came back to It. 

He ran his hand over the still healing bite mark under his shirt, gauze creating a slight bulking of his shirt at his shoulder. Bill had woken up, shirt torn and bleeding.  More evidence that his dreams weren’t dreams. And if Pennywise was to be believed, they weren’t his dreams. 

He’d cleaned the wounds with hydrogen peroxide he’d found under the sink. There had been no band aids, so Bill had to do a late night run to the nearest convenience store and had gotten gauze instead. His shirt was beyond salvageable and he had never been more thankful about his parents neglect then when his mom had washed the linens without asking why there’d been blood. 

Bill walked home shaking in anger. He’d dragged his friends down into the sewers for nothing. It was still alive and eating children and nothing he had gone through had been worth it. Georgie had died for nothing. He was so angry he could scream, throat burning. 

Stan had almost died and now It was back again like nothing had ever happened. 

And it was all his fault, again. Bill should have gone back down into the sewers as soon as he had woken up and killed It then the girl would still be alive. He’d been a coward after their last encounter and now a girl was dead. 

It’s all his fault. 

It’s all his fault. 

Georgie’s death had been his fault. He should have never let his brother go out alone. He should have gone out with him. There was a thousand things that he could have done. 

When Bill got back to the house, he screamed into a pillow, screamed until his throat grew hoarse and then got up and bought a gun and flashlight at the pawn shop. He walked into the house on Neibolt Street expecting to have to go down into the sewers but the clown was there, waiting for him. 

The bells on It’s ruffled suit jiggled as It stood to Its full height. 

Bill raised the gun, keeping It pointed at It, “if y-yuh-you start killing again, then all the losers will come kill you.”

“And I will kill them,” It said simply. 

Bill shook his head, “we killed you as c-children, you think we wuh-won’t kill you again now? You got owned by a bunch of c-c-ch-kids asshole!” At least he sounded more confident than he felt.

“Do you even know how to shot little buddy,” It said, cocking Its head. 

He had seen Mike do it. How hard could it be? 

Bill pulled the trigger, aiming right at the monsters skull, and missed, bullet not coming close to hitting Pennywise. The force of the gun, had him stumbling back, eardrums ringing. 

It laughed. “Why did you come back Billy boy? Eager to die!”

Bill shook his head. That wasn’t right. “Yuh-you called me here! You think I w-want to have to deal with this s-sh-shit again!”

“I do admit I pulled on anything I could find. For the first time in all of time something hurt me, even if it was only temporarily. Even if it was more on an a nuisance than anything. I dreamed of all the things I would do to you. No swift floating for you. I called,” It croaked, “but only you came here, destroyed all the turtles plans for me. Sweet sweet boy.”

“I’m not a kid anym-muh-more,” Bill spat, “if I go missing people will notice.”

“No one notices anything, not here,” It said coming closer, forcing Bill to step back and back until his back hit the wall. It knocked the gun out of his hand. His heart leaped into his throat.

The smell of rot and blood emanated from Its mouth, breath wafting as It spoke, strings of drool clinging to Its chin. There was no evidence of the pole Bill had stuck through Its head last night. It had healed, whole again. The black lines had receded since their encounter in the sewer entrance. 

For the fist time, Bill wondered if It could even be killed. 

He’d been so sure It could be. But that was an advantage of being a kid, simplifying things. Let’s kill it, he had thought as a child, never questioning whether It was possible. He’d wanted to fix things, never considering that they’d been broken beyond repair. 

But now he was an adult and he could barely wrap his head around It even existing and what that meant. He hope to whatever gods were out there that there weren’t anymore Pennywise’s roaming about. 

“Stay with me little buddy,” It said, tugging at his hair with a gloved hand. “I am a creature of indulgence and I will indulge on you and you shall be eternal, eternally suffering for thinking you could kill me. Your mind will fray and snap and even then I will feast and feast,” It promised. 

“You never go through with any of y-your threats,” Bill snapped, “you’re juh-just scared that you wuh-won’t survive the next time, the next b-b-broken skull.”

“Careful Billy boy,” It said, licking Its lips. 

“If yuh-you’re g-guh-going to kill me j-just get it over with already.”

“No,” It growled, fisting It’s gloved hand in his hair, “your mine! Mine! Mine!” It sounded more like a child throwing a tantrum than a monster from the depths of space. 

Bill rolled his eyes. He had given It plenty of opportunities to kill him, but It hadn’t.  He was getting sick of It and Its games. 

“Mine,” It growled one last time, shaking Bill to make him understand what It meant before closing Its mouth over Bill’s, forcing Its long slimy tongue into his mouth. 

There was no warmth or any semblance of want as Its tongue invaded his mouth. It was all cold and need, tongue rough against Bill’s mouth. Too much of spit and drool. He gagged.

Bill’s eyes widened and he tried to pull away, but there was no where to go and It had crowded him against the wall.He thought about biting down but winced as It yanked his hair in warning. 

Bill felt the strangest fear of arousal and disgust, his jeans tightening even as he tried to block out whatever _this_ was. 

“Mine,” It hissed again when It released him.

Stumbled away from It, Bill yelled, “What the fuck!”

“Is this not what humans do to show ownership,” It stated. “You are mine. You came to me. You sought me out, and you’ve been mine since the day I decided to dine on your tasty tasty flesh.”

“No,” Bill said, shaking, “I dd-d-don’t-No!”

Pennywise’s eyes narrowed. “Mine. My special little buddy,” It said slowly, “or I’m sure I could find lots of other kids.”

Bill felt like throwing up for the hundredth time that day. 

Pennywise brought him close to itself, wrapping It’s large body around him, before inhaling his scent. “Fear,” It whispered intimately, fingers drumming down his spine. 

As soon as It pulled away, Bill ran out the door of the house on Neibolt Street. He wiped his mouth with his shirt, washing it with soap as he stood in the shower back at his parent’s house. Bill scrubbed and scrubbed at his skin. 

The bite mark on his shoulder was still angry and red. He was disgusted and confused. It wanted something with him, something more than just to eat him. Up until that point Bill had thought It only ate and slept but now-he was pretty sure It had kissed him, in Its own way. 

And Bill didn’t know what to do with that. 

He’d just have to try and kill It again. There was no reason to change his original plan. 

Next time he’d be better prepared and he’d actually kill It. 

 


End file.
